Stimulus-driven updating of long-term context memories in visual search

Conci, Markus; Zellin, Martina · 2022 · Crossref

DOI: 10.1007/s00426-021-01474-w

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Summary

This study investigates how visual search efficiency is maintained when the location of a target changes within a previously learned spatial context. While "contextual cueing" typically speeds up search when target and distractor layouts are repeated, relocating the target usually abolishes this benefit because attention remains biased toward the original location. The authors tested whether transient, bottom-up attentional signals could facilitate the updating of these long-term contextual memories, allowing observers to efficiently adapt to the new target position. The research comprised three experiments using a standard visual search task where participants identified the orientation of a 'T' target among 'L' distractors. All experiments began with a learning phase where specific spatial contexts were repeatedly paired with a fixed target location. In the subsequent relocation phase, the target moved to a new position within the same context. Experiment 1 introduced a facilitatory signal by making the relocated target significantly brighter (more salient) than the distractors. Experiment 2 introduced an inhibitory signal by placing a distractor at the original target location, theoretically tagging it for inhibition. Experiment 3 served as a control, replicating the relocation without any additional attentional guidance signals. Participants' response times (RTs) and accuracy were measured across these phases, followed by a transfer phase to test for sustained learning without the guidance signals. The results demonstrated that attentional guidance significantly enhanced the flexibility of contextual learning. In Experiment 1, the salient target led to much faster overall search times, and a small but reliable contextual cueing effect persisted during the relocation phase. Crucially, this benefit transferred to the final phase, where the target was no longer salient, indicating successful updating of the memory representation. Experiment 2 yielded similar results, showing that inhibiting the old target location also supported efficient adaptation. In contrast, Experiment 3 replicated previous findings, showing that without guidance signals, contextual cueing largely vanished after the target relocation. Furthermore, analysis of reaction time distributions confirmed that the cueing effect in the experimental conditions shifted the entire distribution, rather than affecting only slow responses. These findings suggest that bottom-up attentional mechanisms—both facilitatory and inhibitory—can mediate the efficient updating of long-term contextual associations. By providing transient signals that highlight the new target or suppress the old one, the visual system can overcome the proactive interference caused by established memories. This implies that contextual learning is not rigid; rather, its flexibility can be modulated by immediate stimulus-driven attentional guidance, allowing for rapid adaptation to environmental changes without the need for extensive, time-consuming retraining.

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• visual search